Imperial History

Introduction

Empires have been a dominant form for organizing global space and peoples from antiquity to very recent decades - some would argue up to and including the present. Imperial history at Harvard enlists the teaching and scholarly efforts of many departmental colleagues. Our interests range from ancient to contemporary times, and cover diverse territories in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe. We employ different methodologies, look for different sources, and ask many different questions. Yet we are all interested in power and hegemony, subalternity and resistance.

Empires challenge us to understand the organization of cultural diversity, the control of space, environment, and language, and the management of loyalties through consent, law, ideology, and violence. We seek to comprehend the mechanisms and processes that enable empires to emerge, adapt, and disappear, leaving some traces behind, but not others. In this effort, we believe that one must be attentive to economic, social, cultural, geographic and legal aspects and issues of gender as well as to change over time, and that one must constantly search for materials that reveal empire’s inner workings, not just from the top down, but also from the bottom up and from the periphery to the center. Finally, we ask what common features empires share, how empires differ among themselves, what is particular about empires as compared to other structures, and how they continue to shape our world.

Past Course Offerings in Imperial History:

SOCWORLD 42 The World Wars and Global Transformation, 1900–1950FRSEMR 43C: Human Rights and the Global SouthHIST 13S: Secrets and Lies in European HistoryHIST 14A: The Medieval Mediterranean: Conflict and Unity, Tradition and InnovationHIST 72E: The Life and Reign of Catherine the GreatHIST 82F: The Origins of the Cold War: The Yalta Conference (1945)HIST 1206: Empire, Nation, and Immigration in France since 1870HIST 1270: Frontiers of Europe: Ukraine since 1500HIST 1284: Revolutionary Eurasia, 1905–1949HIST 1623: Japan in the Modern WorldHIST 1701: West Africa from 1800 to the PresentHIST 1878A: Ottoman State and Society (1300–1550)HIST 1882: The Middle East in the Twentieth CenturyHIST 1910: The History of EnergyHIST 1911: Pacific HistoryHIST 1943: From Wounded Knee to Standing Rock: Indigenous Political Struggle since 1890HIST 1952: Mapping HistoryHIST 1960: The European Union: Achievements and CrisesHIST 1993: Introduction to Digital HistoryHIST 2400: Readings in Colonial and Revolutionary America: Graduate ProseminarHIST 2653: Historiography of Modern Japan: Graduate ProseminarHIST 2480A: The Political Economy of Modern Capitalism: SeminarHIST 2950A: Approaches to Global History: SeminarHIST 1457: History of American CapitalismSOCWORLD 13: Japan in Asia and the WorldUS 28: Racial Capitalism and Imperialism: The US between the Revolution and the Civil WarFRSEMR 61M: The Silk Road as History, Culture, and PoliticsHIST 14E: The Cold War in the Global SouthHIST 89J: The United States and China: Opium War to the PresentHIST 97L: What is Atlantic History?HIST 1039: First Empires: Power and Propaganda in the Ancient WorldHIST 1280: History of the Soviet Union, 1917–1991HIST 1290: The History of the Russian EmpireHIST 1457: History of American CapitalismHIST 1878B: Ottoman State and Society II (1550–1920)HIST 1944: Race, Indigeneity, and Empire in the Asia/Pacific Wars, 1898–presentHIST 2271: The Soviet Union: Graduate ProseminarHIST 2277: Eastern Europe: Peoples and Empires: Graduate ProseminarHIST 2989: The United States in the World: Graduate ProseminarHIST 2270: Reformation and the Making of Religious Practice in Britain and Colonial America, c. 1550–1700: Graduate research SeminarHIST 2480B: The Political Economy of Modern Capitalism: Graduate Seminar